"Who says I love it?" The smile is back, twisted and miserable. "Tell me, Sonia, how can I love a world that hates me? Barrayar has always hated me. All her Vor have always seen me as a pathetic disgrace. Someone to laugh at and mock. Impoverished, disinherited, disgraced. Unmanly and unsoldierly. Three-quarters mad. How could I love a place like this?"

How, indeed? The bitterness in his voice is real. It's the confusion that he hides. Because how does he still love this place...? After all of that?

"Tell me truly. If you'd grown up as a prole instead of a beloved daughter of the highest of Vor - hell, if you'd always had to endure this place, instead of getting your time on Beta to make you sane and happy - would you love Barrayar as much as you do?"